Lee Westwood takes swipe at ‘fifth major’ talk after Players Championship advert

The long-running debate over whether The Players Championship should be recognised as golf’s fifth major has reignited after the PGA Tour released a new advert promoting its flagship event at TPC Sawgrass.

For decades, The Players has been labelled the sport’s “unofficial fifth major”, sitting just outside the established quartet of The Masters, US PGA Championship, US Open and The Open Championship. With this year’s tournament taking place from 12–15 March, the PGA Tour has once again leaned into that narrative.

The new promotional video (watch below), released with a month to go until tee-off, features the tagline “March Is Going To Be Major” — a line that quickly caught the attention of golf fans and media alike.

GOLF’s Dylan Dethier was among the first to highlight the advert, before Golf Digest writer Shane Ryan weighed in with a tongue-in-cheek suggestion that new PGA Tour CEO Brian Rolapp should “own the audacious new maverick persona” and market The Players as the fourth major — leaving it “up to the imagination” which event would be demoted to fifth.

That suggestion prompted a pointed response from LIV Golf’s Lee Westwood, who questioned both the geography of the major championships and the Tour’s stance on LIV players.

The former World No.1 and European Ryder Cup legend mocked the idea of adding yet another major championship on American soil, where three of the existing four majors are already staged.

Posting on X, Westwood wrote:

Another major in the US is just what golf needs. 🤦🏽‍♂️
But as a test run ask Rolapp to invite the top 15 off LIV to play in this year’s Players. Let me know how that goes.
If anything the PGA should be rotated around the world and played in the US once every four years.

Westwood’s comments also carried an implicit criticism of the PGA Tour’s relationship with LIV Golf, suggesting that if The Players were truly considered a major, there would be little chance of the Tour extending invitations to LIV’s leading players.

The debate arrives at a time of significant change under Rolapp, who replaced Jay Monahan as PGA Tour CEO earlier this season. Rolapp has already made headlines with several bold decisions, most notably the introduction of a new Returning Membership policy.

That policy allowed Brooks Koepka to immediately rejoin the PGA Tour despite leaving LIV Golf with a year remaining on his contract — a move that stunned the game.

Patrick Reed has also since departed LIV Golf, but unlike Koepka, he was not eligible for the fast-track return, as the policy only applies to players who have won a major or The Players Championship since LIV’s launch in 2022. Reed’s sole major victory came at The Masters in 2018, falling outside that window.

For now, Reed has been competing on the DP World Tour under his Honorary Lifetime Membership and will be eligible to make a full return to the PGA Tour in August. It was confirmed this week that he will make his first PGA Tour start since the 2022 Memorial Tournament at the Genesis Scottish Open in July, a co-sanctioned event with the DP World Tour held at The Renaissance Club a week before The Open Championship.

Whether the PGA Tour continues to push The Players Championship closer to “major” status remains to be seen — but as Westwood’s response shows, the conversation is far from settled.